The human costs of airstrikes
To the editor,
I believe that what NATO is doing to Yugoslavia is a big mistake.
The Balkans has been an area of conflict for hundreds of years. The Balkans had three Balkan Wars earlier this century when the Hapsburg Austro-Hungarian Empire got control of Bosnia, Croatia, and Slovenia and Serbia just got independence from the declining Ottoman Empire.
World War I started in Sarajevo on July 28, 1914, when a Serbian Nationalist Gavrillo Princep killed the Archduke Franz Ferdinand (the heir to the throne of the Austro-Hungarian empire). When the war was over at the Treaty of Versailles where Germany had to pay 14 billion gold marks in reparations.
Also at Versailles, Yugoslavia was created, which means Kingdom of Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Yugoslovakia at creation in 1919 had six different nationalities, Serbs, Croats, Slovenes, Macedonians, Kosovars, Montenegrins.
These nationalities put their differences aside when Josef Tito, who was the hard-line Stalinist dictator from 1946 to his death in 1980. Yugoslavia was able to hold themselves together for the 1984 Winter Olympics in Sarajevo. When the Soviet Union began its march to its grave in the late 80's and early 90's the differences began to rift.
In 1991, when the Soviet Union collapsed, Croatia and Slovenia declared independence from the Serbs, there was a nasty civil war killing many. In 1992, when Bosnia-Herzegovina declared independence from Serbia, there was a bad civil war for over three years causing the deaths of hundreds of thousands.
My heart was broken when I saw Zetra Arena in Sarajevo which was used during the 84 Olympics where Scott Hamilton, Katerina Witt, Jane Torvill and Christopher Dean won gold medals. Now in the past year, since the ethnic Albanians want independence from Serbia, we should consider the human costs of the airstrikes. The Serbians don't want war, the Serbian government wants war. I want NATO to consider the history of the area and the human costs of conducting air strikes.
Gregory Schneider
Political science and history senior
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